All of the current corrupted systems can die off and be improved with their replacement, but if we don't have something better and more trustworthy to take their place then there will be more suffering.
The willingness to die to protect others from evil has always been a main virtue, but most of us are more useful if we are still alive and work together to find the best worlds and individual growth possible. A martyr's death is less useful today than it used to be. But heroic courage and intellectual courage are still needed.
The thought experiment here is designed to get readers to think about what's most important to them and think about the extreme case of death, which helps frame the more important question about whether and to what extent he or she is willing to struggle (to live) for her ideals. It assumes struggles are ahead of us, of course.
For me this question is not literal as with the burning monk, particularly because I want to live and live well. But I want to pose the question to interrogate my ideas, to consider what sacrifices are worth what future world, and then imagining the coming struggle that is likely to make life hard. I also want to acknowledge that people talk a big game until they have a gun pointed at them. We can find more courage in solidarity and commitment.
For the socialist, there are no “values that are greater than life itself and for which one should be willing to die.” If one accepts that life without transcendent values is the sole standard, that one wills only pleasure, and that the world is one of mechanistic causality, then the socialist nexus becomes inevitable: Misfortune or suffering arrive neither by accident nor by personal fault, but by misinformation, which can be rectified by state intervention. If misfortune or suffering persist, then extra-personal systems, “intersectionalities” and, ultimately, God are to blame.
Another question could be: Where can we go? If one doesn't feel able to survive and thrive through a collapse, what other place is there? Alas, almost everywhere else looks worse. And getting off-planet remains far, far away.
I don't think we have any choice but to find our kind and then find solidarity in struggle. And you're right: Off-world fantasies are probably good for priming our instincts for exodology, but little else.
All of the current corrupted systems can die off and be improved with their replacement, but if we don't have something better and more trustworthy to take their place then there will be more suffering.
The willingness to die to protect others from evil has always been a main virtue, but most of us are more useful if we are still alive and work together to find the best worlds and individual growth possible. A martyr's death is less useful today than it used to be. But heroic courage and intellectual courage are still needed.
The thought experiment here is designed to get readers to think about what's most important to them and think about the extreme case of death, which helps frame the more important question about whether and to what extent he or she is willing to struggle (to live) for her ideals. It assumes struggles are ahead of us, of course.
LOVE
For me this question is not literal as with the burning monk, particularly because I want to live and live well. But I want to pose the question to interrogate my ideas, to consider what sacrifices are worth what future world, and then imagining the coming struggle that is likely to make life hard. I also want to acknowledge that people talk a big game until they have a gun pointed at them. We can find more courage in solidarity and commitment.
For the socialist, there are no “values that are greater than life itself and for which one should be willing to die.” If one accepts that life without transcendent values is the sole standard, that one wills only pleasure, and that the world is one of mechanistic causality, then the socialist nexus becomes inevitable: Misfortune or suffering arrive neither by accident nor by personal fault, but by misinformation, which can be rectified by state intervention. If misfortune or suffering persist, then extra-personal systems, “intersectionalities” and, ultimately, God are to blame.
I take the observations above from Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, here: https://www.tfp.org/why-must-they-put-warnings-on-each-cigarette/
Another question could be: Where can we go? If one doesn't feel able to survive and thrive through a collapse, what other place is there? Alas, almost everywhere else looks worse. And getting off-planet remains far, far away.
I don't think we have any choice but to find our kind and then find solidarity in struggle. And you're right: Off-world fantasies are probably good for priming our instincts for exodology, but little else.